Started with Hello
by Chinarin
Summary: High school sophomore Matthew Williams gets bored in class one fateful day and sends a message via school desk to whoever cares to read it. And, much to his surprise, the last person he thought would read it does. PruCan.


It was 4th period World History, and Matthew Williams was bored out of his mind. The teacher Mr. Manson, whose voice sounded about as pleasant as an alarm clock on a Monday morning, was going on about cows and Hinduism. Which would have been just fine, except for the fact that it was about as interesting as a brick wall. Tired of drawing squiggles on a sorry excuse for a page of notes, Matt turned his attention to the wooden desk at which he sat.

Desks, along with bathroom stall walls, were one of the main means of communication at West High. On them people scribbled profanities and made lists of sluts and all the things that went through high schoolers' minds. Based on the amount of dinosaur drawings and the innumerable times the word "fuck" was written on his desk, Matt was fairly sure neither Mr. Manson nor the janitor really gave a damn about the desks. This fact, paired with his extreme boredom, was what compelled him to write down a tentative "hello" on a unscathed spot of the wooden tabletop.

After doing so, he proceeded to quickly look around to make sure no one had caught him in the act of writing on something besides his paper, but, as usual, nobody even acknowledged his existence. Still, his heard was pounding as he tuned back into Mr. Manson, who was saying something about how if you eat a sacred cow, you'll be bitch-slapped by a six-handed Hindu goddess.

The rest of the class was a blur graffiting the desk. For all he knew, it could've been five more minutes of the mind numbing anguish or five more hours. But finally the bell rang, cutting off Mr. Manson mid-sentence, which the boy really had no problem with. He stuffed his notebook into his backpack and got to his feet. As he followed the stream of chattering kids leaving the classroom, he caught wind of Mr. Manson saying, in his signature nasally voice, "Matthew Williams?"

Busted. Matthew froze where he was, so close to escaping, only a few feet from the door. His peers drifted past him, like water parting to go around a rock. And that's what he was. A rock. He stood stone still as Mr. Manson approached him, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Yes?" the blonde teenager asked in a small, hesitant voice.

"I was wondering if you would mind delivering the copies of the history test to Mrs. Clark on your way to your next class," Mr. Manson said, handing Matt a pile of paper.

"Sure thing," he said, voice shaky, and it was all he could do to not visibly sigh with relief. So Mr. Manson hadn't seen him write on the desk after all. Go figure.

He delivered the papers like his history teacher had asked, and the rest of the day passed uneventfully for Matt. No one even had the slightest idea it was he who had written on his desk in history, nor did anyone actually care. In fact, no one even paid him any attention until after school. Around 3 o'clock, Matt was sitting on the football bleachers, dutifully solving algebra problems while waiting for his brother Alfred to finish practice, when his cousin Francis Bonnefoy came waltzing up to him.

"_Salut_, Matthieu," the Frenchman said, sitting down next to Matt. "You look quite lonely, here all by yourself. What are you doing, watching the cheerleaders practice? I could introduce you to one of them, if you want."

Matt shook his head, trying to hide his annoyance by moving his face deeper into the dog-eared pages of the textbook. "No, that's fine. I'm just waiting for Al to finish football practice so he can drive me home."

"Ah, _mon cher_, why didn't you just say so?" Francis said, grabbing Matt's algebra book and getting to his feet. "I would happy to drive you home."

The younger boy stood up and tried to grab his textbook, but his taller cousin just switched it to his opposite hand. "Of course, Toni and Gil would be coming along too, but we have room for one more," Francis continued in his melodic accent.

"I'm fine waiting," Matt replied, lunging for the book again, only to miss and nearly fall down the bleachers.

Francis grabbed his arm at the last second, saving him from certain death. "Come on, Matthieu, it will be _fun_," he insisted, blue eyes wide in a mock pleading way. And who was one to deny your savior the right to drive you home?

All things aside, this was how Matthew ended up in the middle of the backseat, between a babbling Spaniard and an egocentric albino German. Raunchy music blasted from the speakers of Francis's yellow Lamborghini, rocking the car as it raced down the highway.

"Look at you," the Spaniard, Antonio, cooed, pinching Matt's red cheeks. "He looks just like a little tomato."

Francis, up front, chuckled. "Be careful with Matthieu, Antonio. He's delicate."

Matt's face turned even redder, prompting Antonio to squish his cheeks as if he were a toddler. He was beginning to feel like getting home early wasn't worth this kind of torture.

Out of the blue, Gilbert, the German, ruffled Matt's mess of blonde hair. "I can teach you to be awesome, kid. Almost as awesome as me. How would you like that?" he asked.

"I, um, ok…." was Matt's oh-so-literate reply, before he trailed off, giving up trying to conjure an intelligent reply. The younger boy was busy studying the smirking albino. He felt both fascinated and repelled by his white hair, and his eyes so translucent they looked to be red.

"At a lost of words, huh?" Gilbert said with a coarse laugh. "That tends to happen when people are around me. Guess it's because of my good looks."

Matt didn't reply, and looked away in embarrassment, focusing in on the houses rushing past.

"_Non_,_ mon cher _isn't interested in you, Gil," Francis said as they pulled into Matt's driveway. "He has his heart set on a girl in his English class. What was her name again? Charlene?"

"Yeah," the boy mumbled in response, unbuckling as the car rolled to a halt. As he clambered over Gilbert to get out of car, the albino left him with a smack on his behind and some parting words, "I know you got the hots for me, Mattie."

Matthew's face, now the shade of the tomatoes Antonio was so fond about, grew hotter as he hurried to the door and let himself inside as the car full of laughing boys sped away.

Yes, he definitely should have waited for his brother.


End file.
